Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Part of my job as a medical courier is to pack some specimens in dry ice for shipment. We get our dry ice in blocks that need to be pulverized before going into a Styrofoam container. In the picture you can see a block of dry ice and the precision tool we use to pulverize the dry ice. Scottsbluff, NE. I am pulverizing the dry ice. Sweet little old lady comes up to me and says, "Sir, I think it is already dead". She then smiles sweetly and goes on her way leaving me going, "Uh, uh .....". Bitch!

Saturday, March 26, 2016

Thinking back on the nine or so hours
spent in a ditch in a Prius hasn’t been fun. Humility isn’t my strong suit.

The spring storm wasn’t technically a
blizzard but when your vehicle is slowly being buried by drifting snow the
distinction is moot.

All these years of packing a winter
survival pack paid off. Sure was glad to have that balaclava while out in 35+
gusting winds.

Cell phones are a great comfort.

The habit of keeping the fuel tank topped
off paid off.

Our family trait of not quitting and
pressing on can be over done. That road closed sign doesn’t apply just to
pilgrims.

While I’ll drive a car with traction
control that can’t be turned off if I’m paid to do so, I will never own one,
ever. Had I been able to turn off the traction control, I could have gotten
back on the road. I have years of experience getting unstuck and know several
ways of doing so.

My ever loving sister will never let this
incident be forgotten, ever.

Need to have reading material in the
survival bags, both the winter and the summer bags.

Having the ability to pay a tow truck on
the spot paid off.

Having a taste of what a refugee faces
makes me determined to never be a refugee.

In spite of all our modern “progress”,
Mother Nature can damn well kill you, and in short order.

Before summer arrives, need to unpack and
check the contents of the summer survival bag. At the same time check the
winter bag before putting it away.

I take no comfort in the hundreds of
motorists who found themselves in my situation. I’m better than that, damnit! (Yeah, I can
hear my sister snort) The tow trucks are still pulling out abandoned vehicles.

Occasionally you come across the phrase, “Africa
wins again!” Perhaps we should have our own phrase, “Winter wins again!”

Thursday, March 24, 2016

All the smart people use focus groups,
right? Well, except for Donald Trump.

Several decades in the retail car biz
made me a cynic about focus groups. We would get called into training sessions
where the car company “suits” would waste our oxygen going over the results of
their latest focus groups. Since I met only two or three “suits” I would have
hired for my crew I didn’t spend a lot of mental energy on their presentations.

One mean, nasty, rude and graceless
manager I worked for was also the one I made the most money with.

In the sales process, the salesperson
makes a presentation to the customer then returns to the “tower” (the back and
forth customers “hate). The exchange would go like this.

“Boss, the customer wants, blah, blah,
blah……”

Kinsman, “I don’t give a fuck what the
customer WANTS. Find out what the fuckers will DO.”

Therein is the weakness of focus groups.
They are “wish” forums. And, as Art
Kinsman would say, “Wish in one hand and shit in the other. See which one fills
first”.

So along comes Trump (see, I do get to a
point) who ignores the whole industry of tea leaf readers and their
sophisticated tools and goes for the throat.

“Hey, American public, what will you do
right now”? Kinsman would have loved him.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

This picture is from 1958. In honor of
the Colorado Centennial, a lot of men grew beards.

My father passed March 21, 1985 from heart
failure. In hindsight, undiagnosed sleep apnea was the underlying cause. Age
64.

He was a good and honest man. Given to
outbursts of temper, he seemingly didn’t hold grudges on a personal level. He
grew up in the Great Depression in a “Grapes of Wrath” level of poverty. His
own father died when he was 16.

For many years he supplemented the family
income by shoeing horses and was highly regarded as a fairer. As a horseman, he
had few peers. He had a gift for languages and came back from the China India Burma
theater speaking several variations of Hindustani (which was his favorite for
cussing). Later he acquired peon Spanish and a working vocabulary of Navajo.

As a hunter he had few equals. Best shot
I’ve ever seen. We would go to the range and I would kill paper way better than
him. A bunch of elk running through aspen? I killed trees and he dropped meat.

The night he died I was sleeping in a
motel in Yakima, WA and had a strange dream I never had before or since. I seem
to be immune to any kind of paranormal experiences so it sticks in my mind.

Like most folks who has lost a parent I miss him and wish we had more time together.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

My Facebook posting was not well received.Thought to ponder. The 60's and 70's radicals are the 21st Century Establishment.This election cycle has seen a number of folks "unfriending" me. Pussies can't stand anyone calling them on their bullshit. They seem to need a safe place to keep from having their feelings hurt. On Facebook?I am rapidly becoming persona non grata in the People's Republic of Boulder. Oh well.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

This morning one of the hospitals we service had a belligerent drunk in the Emergency Room. The town is too small to support a detox facility. I felt so sorry for the staff trying to deal with him. A Deputy was standing by to haul his sorry ass to jail once the medical staff cleared the transfer.I don't have a problem with people who over indulge but keep their manners (and aren't on the road). The assholes get to me. In the younger days when working crowd control, I enjoyed throwing their sorry asses out. I wouldn't have made it as a police officer, lacking more than rudimentary tolerance.But WSF, what kind of drunk are you? Sunshine, I don't need alcohol to be obnoxious.End of rant. YMMV

Once again WSF goes wandering down a
murky path. You have been warned.

Trying to stay awake on the road, turned
on the radio and came across an individual preaching “climate change”. Said it is the, “Biggest threat to us as a species”.
As he went on, the message I heard was only he and his fellow “scientists” and
useful idiots could save us. Damned if he didn’t sound just like an evangelical
preacher spouting fire and brimstone.

History is replete with shamans, priests,
witches/wiccans, druids, etc. While a source of good (medicine, morals, laws)
they have also been focused on gaining power over their fellows. That brings
wealth, status, and good sex to them while they promise various rewards to
those they seek to dominate. Someone please tell me I’m full of shit.

Climate change? Hell yes, it has been happening for eons. Will
we suddenly become Venus? Will we enter another Ice Age? Will all the frozen methane on the sea beds be
released suddenly? Will the ocean currents suddenly reverse course? Will the
magnetic poles suddenly reverse polarity? You don’t know, I don’t know, and
these “climate change” scaremongers for damn sure don’t know. What the scare
mongers do know is there is money and power to be had if their “message” is
believed by enough people. Many of them could make a living writing scripts for
horror films.

I get it that this is satire. I also get
the people who find this humorous also believe it.

I’m reminded of another little gem.

If we can’t use the power of persuasion, we’ll
use the persuasion of power.”

Andy Stern, Former SEIU International President

I don’t doubt for a minute that, if
available, force won’t be used to advance the “climate change” shaman’s agenda.

There are two real dangers here.

First, the loss of our freedoms and
property.

Second, the boy who cried wolf. So much
bullshit has been spread that a real and serious threat won’t be believed.

One last swipe at “settled science”. I read where someone drilled down on one
claim. The scientific organization has a membership of around 6,000. 79
members, out of 6,000 were surveyed. The results were published as to imply all
6,000 members were in agreement.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

My late father was a great proponent of
what he called, “The Belly Flapping Principal”. Short version, nothing changes your
perspective and motivation like hunger.

So now WSF is tripping down the road of
Presidential election politics. Why not? All the cool bloggers are doing it.

Many people see their financial lives
eroding. The older ones see their children and grand children struggling. The “millenniums”
sense they are screwed. Lots of belly flapping going on now, and lots more on
the horizon. People want answers. They want solutions.

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About Me

Semi retired road warrior, car salesman, occasional repo man. Father of three fine sons. Once a Blue Dog Democrat. Once a soldier; once a pilot. Rolling along life's highway proving there is no fool like an old fool.